Because preschool children are still thinking in images, it is a common creative technique in the picture book industry to transform familiar things to help them understand abstract concepts. It can be said that almost every children's book brand has published such a book. Although some books always want to be related to the knowledge of mathematics, physics and other disciplines, similarities and differences are indeed everywhere, and we also distinguish things through similarities and differences.
Similarity is like the shadow of difference. Two things are similar, and they are distinguished by their differences with the third party. Two things are different because one of them is similar to a third party. The same is true for individuals. There are differences between short people and tall people, but if compared with women, they are similar. Children's books often compare or exchange places between people and animals, creating interesting differences and letting children understand the existence of relativity.
The following is a list of topics in this issue of children's books.
How long is a second? Steve Jenkins writes/paints, translated by Li Yiran, Love Tree | Emerging Press, 2065,438+July 2008.
What parents love to say to their children is probably "hurry up!" Hurry up! Perhaps the most common answer for children is "Right away! Right now! "So, how fast is fast? How soon? Maybe we need to unify the concept of time before reaching an agreement.
This book is about "seconds", which is completely invented by human beings in order to measure the minimum time for themselves. Then from a second to a minute to an hour to a day to several years, this time is defined by what creatures do during these times. For example, in one second, bats can send out 200 ultrasonic waves; In one minute, people can quickly walk 9 1 meter; Within an hour, the baby blue whale fed on its mother's milk gained nearly 4.5 kilograms. Within a week, ladybugs ate at least 500 aphids ... thus completing the explanation of the concept of time.
The Book of Classification [English] by Neil Parker, translated by Zhang Jian, Relay Press, 2020, 65438+February.
Classification is one of the ways we know the world. This book brings together similar things and distinguishes them from others. There are similarities and differences, just like the catalogue of an encyclopedia. If the last book "How long is a second" started from a simple concept and gradually extended to a complex concept, then this classified book is to simplify the complexity and present the order in daily life in the form of graphics.
This book classifies 13 things. They are genealogy, animal kingdom, musical instruments, vehicles, tool boxes, types of clouds, architecture, apples, books, art, cheese, time maps and DNA. How to classify it is of course according to the author's ideas. In fact, everyone can have their own classification method, just as children have to learn to classify their toys.
By Your Side: How Big and How Far, written by Gestalt Studio, painted by Cen Jun, translated by Song Yushan, Waves Bloom | Tianjin People's Publishing House, 202 1 August.
Look up, look down and look around. Some things here are very small, and some things there are very high. The smallest thing floats in the air, and the towering thing rising from the ground is one of the oldest things in the world. However, how big is it, how small is it, how slow is it, and how much is it? Maybe you can measure everything by yourself.
This book starts with everything related to "you", including your teeth, eyeballs, height, body temperature, age and so on. Compared with animals, abstract concepts such as body shape, distance, weight and speed are introduced. For example, people have 32 teeth, but armadillos have more than 80 teeth, and great white sharks have 300 teeth; Open your arms as far as possible, so that the maximum length you can stretch now is the same as your height, but some animals are not. ...
Small World under the Nose, translated by Hilten and Zhao, Little Mammoth | Electronic Industry Press, 202 1.
Caterpillar grows very fast, but if you change this speed to the growth speed of your feet, it will grow too long to squeeze into the school bus; Ants can easily lift objects more than 50 times their own weight, but what if ants are as big as people? The author drew an ant all over a piece of paper, but people couldn't catch such a big ant at all.
The real size and the perceived size are completely different in cognition, depending on who you are. Chickens are nothing to people, but they are monsters to ants. We all live in a big world that contains countless small worlds.
The Big Universe above the Sky, written/painted by Hilten, translated by Zhao, Little Mammoth | Electronic Industry Press, 202 1.
This book is the work of the same author as Small World under the Eyes. It requires readers to expand their horizons beyond the earth and transform the characteristics of planets in the solar system into common things around them.
Uranus is particularly cold. It is called the "ice giant". The painter painted Uranus as blue ice cream. Venus rotates in the opposite direction, so the painter drew a fish swimming in the opposite direction among a group of fish. ...
Maybe we think the earth is big, but compared with the whole solar system, we are all small.
"It's a pig, not a pig", written/painted by Li [Han], inspired by | Hebei Education Press, 202 1 July.
There are not many words in this book, and the author's pictures are very similar to visual games. By changing the scene of two pigs, children are taught to understand common concepts such as big and small, deep and shallow, inside and outside, fat and thin, which are suitable for younger babies.
There is a special page turning design in the book. There are questions and answers, and some questions do not necessarily have only one answer.
The tallest tower and the smallest star, written by Kate Baker, painted by Zou, translated by Chen, published by Zhixin Publishing Group, 202 1 April.
This book has a very grand perspective, spanning hundreds of millions of years. In the vast world of astronomy, history, geography, architecture, animals and plants, and the biggest and smallest things, the differences between ancient and modern are compared in one picture, and the condensed knowledge points are probably the most in this book list.
Interesting measurement, by Mireya Serus and Oscar Julve, translated by Wang Liya, Beidou Children's Books | Dolphin Publishing House, July 2020.
This book has more obvious mathematical concepts. On the right side of each page is a mathematical unit, such as meter, square centimeter, kilogram, etc. The picture shows the daily life scenes that these units can correspond to. They will also appear more in the application problems of primary school mathematics.
For example, a shirt has 1 buttons, a laptop keyboard has 1 buttons, and an eye has 1 nails and iris, which is about 1 cm2. Through this exhibition, young readers can associate more things with abstract mathematical concepts.
Cool Bug, written by Sharon Weiner, painted by Sarah Floss, translated by Zhao Chang, read with pleasure | Changjiang Children's Publishing House, 202 1 year,1month.
This is a picture book of popular science bugs. Cockroaches, spiders, mosquitoes ... are not limited to insects, but common insects. Every bug doesn't look terrible at all, because they are all spelled with numbers, and the introduction of each bug is also connected in series with numbers. Suitable for children who already know the size of the number and know the difference between bugs through comparative mathematics.
A total of 23 kinds of insects and their interesting knowledge are introduced in the book, and their magical skills are also displayed in a comparative and humorous way.
The title picture comes from the picture book "Little World under the Eyes" produced by Little Mammoth.
Editor | Shen Chan, Luo Dong
Proofread | Cece